Yamit

I watched the waves from the Mediterranean roll gently towards me as I was standing on the beach not far from my house, a home I would soon have to leave forever. It was situated on the outskirts of Yamit, a town which had existed for almost a decade by now and was targeted for demolition the very next day. There were drawings of flowers and hearts on the moist sand by the waterfront, the work of my youngest daughter. They would soon be washed away by the tide.

I lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then sighed as I exhaled. What, indeed, was I going to do after they had left? I knew that my husband Mordechai, a pediatrician, already had a job waiting for him, but what about me? I loved every room in the house and knew every inch of it. With the passage of time, the house would turn into sand. I went back inside and left the porch door open.

Some of the inhabitants of Yamit had occupied the main entrance to the town to prevent the army from entering while others were preparing for a confrontation in their houses. Their protests were to no avail, however, as the army used water canons on those that had climbed to the roofs of their houses to prevent the soldiers from evacuating them. Everyone but myself had left the town before that evening.

I was in the army reserves and had been called to help evacuate the people of Yamit, my own neighbours. I had refused. I negotiated a compromise with the officer in charge of the evacuation. They granted my wish to stay one last night, but I would have to agree to further reserve duty after the evacuation had taken place. If not, there would be consequences, serious consequences.

I felt it would have been unfair to ask my family to stay with me. I might become overwhelmed with emotion and that might upset both the children and Mordechai. He had grudgingly accepted my wish to stay. My neighbours knew nothing about any of this.
It was 23:30. The electricity and telephone service would be cut at 00:00.

I picked up the phone. It felt somewhat heavier this time, maybe all that had happened had made me weaker. I had to check the number on a piece of paper I had stuck to the fridge, the phone had just been connected in our new house in the city. One of my daughters picked up the phone and told me how beautiful the new apartment was. I lied and said that made me happy. I asked to talk to Mordechai. He wondered how I was doing and I answered, hesitantly, that I was Ok. I could tell from his voice that he was worried about me.

He said "good night, Tziporah, and take care of yourself". I hung up the phone and dimmed the electric lights. I lit candles in the kitchen and brewed myself a cup of tea. On the top of a stack of old albums I picked up a record and started playing it, the vinyl letting off a hissing sound as the needle hit it.

Beside the stove on the counter top was I photo album. I opened it and started flipping the pages. The album was dated chronologically, starting in 1977 when we had just moved in. We had had one daughter at the time and we had, piece by piece, started building a home. In the picture, I was filling the freezer with tartlets I had prepared to have in handy when friends and family would visit. I could remember the taste of the frosting, vanilla and peach. Now it just contained a pre-prepared sandwich for breakfast the following morning.

I flipped the page to 1978, when my second daughter and my sister and my husband had visited us to celebrate our engagement. They had brought the children a giant teddy bear, and now I reminiscened how it had been towering over the children as they lay asleep in their beds.

I flipped the page to 1979. In the picture, Mordechai was was holding up the chess trophy he had won in a championship that had put Yamit on the map in the rest of the country. I put the photo album down.

As I pulled the chair out to sit at the kitchen table with my freshly brewed cup of tea, I heard the chair bump against something with a soft thud. It was a small cardboard removal box that I must have left behind when we had been moving all of our things into the removal van. I put it on the kitchen table and opened it. It contained a deck of Tarot cards and what appeared to be an instruction manual. I asked herself how it had ended up there. Mordechai had a superstitious grandmother, had she given it to him? I did not know, but I knew that I had not seen it before. I picked up the deck and the manual and put it on the table, then sat down. The instructions first outlined examples of the goal of the divination. I wanted to know everything about my future.